Repairing completely broken magic items

[Darg]

Is there a source that explicitly says you can't? The DMG specifically states the Make Whole spell cannot repair completely broken items, but says nothing on normal repair methods. Right before the repairing magic items section it says it's magic power is lost. Considering it's right before the book tells you can repair the items, it's really easy to say that it just doesn't want player's using broken items to benefit not that the magic is lost forever.

With the overall consensus on these boards being that sunder permanently breaks these items I was wondering if there was a definitive reason, event, or rule that proves one way or the other. Or whether this is more a zeitgeist understanding passed down through the years.

[Beni-Kujaku]

It's right there in the PHB. (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/feats.htm#craftMagicArmsAndArmor)



You can create any magic weapon, armor, or shield whose prerequisites you meet. Enhancing a weapon, suit of armor, or shield takes one day for each 1,000 gp in the price of its magical features. To enhance a weapon, suit of armor, or shield, you must spend 1/25 of its features’ total price in XP and use up raw materials costing one-half of this total price.

The weapon, armor, or shield to be enhanced must be a masterwork item that you provide. Its cost is not included in the above cost.

You can also mend a broken magic weapon, suit of armor, or shield if it is one that you could make. Doing so costs half the XP, half the raw materials, and half the time it would take to craft that item in the first place.

Pretty much all the crafting feats have a similar paragraph to the one I bolded.

[Telonius]

Oh yeah, in the other thread I'd totally forgotten the feat text. Still makes it a total pain to deal with. If you decide to fix a "sundered-to-zero" item, you'd only be making about a quarter of the regular list price when you sell it, not half; and you'd be out the extra time and XP it takes to get it up to that point. So for - taking a random one - an Oathbow, you'd normally be able to sell it for 12,800gp (half the list price). But to fix a sundered one, you'd need to spend 6550gp (half the creation cost), so you'd only make 6250 selling it. You'd also be out 500XP and the 12 days it takes to fix it. It would be mostly worthless until you spend that. So not exactly impossible; but it still means that Sundering the weapon effectively costs you 6550gp, 500XP and 12 days that you otherwise would have had. Costs increase, the higher the value of the weapon. It's not something you would really want to do unless you don't have a choice.

[ShurikVch]

Rebuild Item - 3rd-level utterance in the Lexicon of the Crafted Tool - rebuilds destroyed item instantly and for free (as long as it was destroyed for no more than 1 round). Doesn't works on artifacts

[Darg]

It's right there in the PHB. (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/feats.htm#craftMagicArmsAndArmor)



Pretty much all the crafting feats have a similar paragraph to the one I bolded.

Thank you. I've completely missed that text all this time and have just been using the normal repair costs (which works amazingly well by the way). Now I understand why sundering is so terrible, especially if one doesn't have an adaptive DM able to compensate lost wealth.

[ShurikVch]

Pretty much all the crafting feats have a similar paragraph to the one I bolded.
Does it mean non-Living Construct which was "killed" (destroyed) can be "resurrected" by usage of Craft Construct (https://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsterFeats.htm#craftConstruct) feat?

[Eldonauran]

Does it mean non-Living Construct which was "killed" (destroyed) can be "resurrected" by usage of Craft Construct (https://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsterFeats.htm#craftConstruct) feat?If by 'resurrected', you mean returned to operational status after spending enough raw materials and time to do so, then yes. But there are no rules about whether such a creature has a soul to be returned, so expectations that it will be the same 'person' should be withheld.


-Cannot heal damage on their own, but often can be repaired by exposing them to a certain kind of effect (see the creature’s description for details) or through the use of the Craft Construct feat. A construct with the fast healing special quality still benefits from that quality.
-Not at risk of death from massive damage. Immediately destroyed when reduced to 0 hit points or less.

Magic items, unless otherwise noted, take damage as nonmagical items of the same sort. A damaged magic item continues to function, but if it is destroyed, all its magical power is lost.

Construct are, by their nature, extremely complex magical items. "Does this one have a soul?" Or is it a complex set of magical 'programming' that merely mimics the appearance of such?

[ShurikVch]

Presuming PC Construct - would we get our character back?

[Eldonauran]

Presuming PC Construct - would we get our character back?
You have a talk with your GM because they are the ones in control of such a grey area. Unless it is a living construct or something that explicitly has a soul, and can be subject to Raise Dead or Resurrection, you pretty much have to rely on Wish or Miracle spells. They might decide that a construct has some sort of core memory that can be repaired or is housed within the 'hardware' of the construct that flickers back to sentience when it is repaired sufficiently. But the RAW rules do not address that, at least to my knowledge.

[Chronos]

I'm pretty sure there's a spell out there somewhere that's basically "Raise Dead, but for constructs".

And not every piece of gear used by every enemy is magical. Plenty of enemies have something that destroying it will seriously hamper them, but only have a trivial effect on your loot profit.